Relational Connections in Classroom Curriculum: Power and Privilege in Diverging Perspectives

Abstract

Circle pedagogy is intended to give students the opportunity to learn how to share, how to make space for others to share, and practice how to set boundaries for moral dialogue and constructive engagement with each other’s perspectives. In this chapter, the ways in which students experience and interpret restorative and peacebuilding pedagogy are explored through classroom vignettes. Drawing on student group interviews, the chapter illustrates how students understand and experience classroom dialogue integrated into the regular classroom curricula, and how even when practiced in equitable (circle) spaces it contributed to interrupting, or at times reaffirming, the status quo. Peer relationships and subsequent dialogue between students are illustrated through a comparison of classroom observations of students, and their reflections during the small-group interviews that occurred immediately following their classroom dialogue experience. The kinds of dialogue students experienced included the sorts of moral issues they grappled with relating to inclusive cultural and sexual identities, and relationships. This chapter also considers how students’ social and cultural capital impacted how certain topics were addressed, taken up, and included in discussion.